In the afterward to Andy Weir’s The Martian, Mr. Weir explains that his most favorite comment to hear about his smash hit is I don’t usually read science fiction, but…

I fall into this camp, and I sure as hell don’t read books that will soon be made into blockbuster movies.

But the hoopla surrounding The Martian was so great, and the praise it received from Mrs. O’Connell so thorough, I could not resist reading this #1 bestseller from a genre I never read.

Like few things in life, the hype was apt. I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Martian.

I will not divulge any spoilers here, of course. If you’re like most of American you’ve read the book already, so it doesn’t matter, but maybe you’re trying to forget a thing or two before you see the movie. I’m going to wait for the thing to come out on Netflix, so by then I’ll have forgotten everything.

One thing I won’t forget is my favorite characteristic of the book…

It’s funny.

That’s right, the futuristic book about space travel and a man seemingly sentenced to death is… funny. The main character is not only likable, he thinks like a regular person (not an egghead astronaut), and he makes fun of things that should be made fun of. Government in particular and bureaucracies in general are numbers one and two. Gotta love that. I wish our protagonist wouldn’t make fun of disco music so much, but nobody’s perfect.

If you have yet to read The Martian, I recommend doing so. The book that started its life as basically a blog post from a guy who likes science deserves its (four years later) celebrated status and hopefully the big-budget film version will do it justice. I’m definitely going to see it…

Even though I don’t usually watch science fiction movies.